I'm still unclear on turnstile interpretation

[Keith Wiley]

I see the doc file associated with the turnstile files and I have found a few posts in the group that attempt to clarify the turnstile data.  Nevertheless, the spec seems a bit unspecific, especially when it is put next to the actual data.

The first three columns are:
  C/A = Control Area (A002)
  UNIT = Remote Unit for a station (R051)
  SCP = Subunit Channel Position represents an specific address for a device (02-00-00)

I believe I read somewhere that the counters represent groups of turnstiles (not individual turnstiles) where such a group is called a "booth" and corresponds to the first column of the table (and likewise associates with the second column of the meta file "Remote-Booth-Station".  Then there is some notion of a "remote unit", about which I am totally unclear and which corresponds to the second column of the table (and associates with the first column of the meta file "Remote-Booth-Station".  In this manner a unique pair of the first two columns can be used to look up a station in the meta table, or perhaps only booth is required (the remote doesn't appear to map to a unique station).  Then there is a third column, the SCP.  I do no understand its meaning and have not found it documented yet, sorry if I missed it.  What does it mean that it is an "address for a device"?  What I do know is that there are rows of data for which the first two columns are identical and only the third differs.  This implied multiple records for unique booth/remote pairs.  Do these records refer to completely different turnstile groups?  Or do the counters actually count individual turnstiles (not groups) and the SCP identifies individual turnstiles within a single "booth" (that would be awesome)?  I just cannot straighten this out from the existing documentation and the existing posts to the group.  Would someone please clarify these details.

The next point of confusion is the DEScn column.  I am aware of the following:
  Regular                         Scheduled every four hours
  Turnstile Vault Open       Installation condition (Rehabilitation project)
  Door Close                    Maintenance
  Door Open                     Maintenance
  Turnstile Board Change  Maintenance or installation condition
  Recover Audit                Recover form a communication outage condition
  Logon                           Maintenance condition (applicable to PATH turnstile only)

However, the actual codes are not provided above; they must be inferred.  Some are fairly obvious, but some are less obvious (if not necessarily inscrutable).  For example, there are no "close" codes in the actual data, but there are "door" and "open" codes...so I'm just blindly assuming that "door" means "close".  Is that correct?  If so, it doesn't make any sense because in most door scenarios in the data the first audit event is a "door" and the latter is an "open", which suggests the first action is to close the door and the second action is to open it.  I would have expect these events to occur in the opposite order.  Then there are codes like "TS", "VLT", and "OPN".  I suppose I can surmise that "VLT" is a "vault-open" code, but then what is "TS"?  Board change perhaps?  Why must we guess so madly at these codes instead of having them documented somewhere?  Likewise, I presume that "OPN" is redundant with "OPEN", i.e., that even though both codes occur in the data, they refer to the same event a "door open" event.  Is this correct?

Help.

Thank you very much for any assistance.

Cheers!

[Keith Wiley]

While I'm waiting for clarification on the first post, I have a follow up question.  There are turnstile entries for the C/A, UNIT pair R413, R325, which should translate to a REMOTE, BOOTH pair (in the Remote-BoothStation table) of R325, R413.  No such entry exists.  The implication is that there is no station name associated with the C/A UNIT pair for that turnstile.  How can we determine which station that turnstile data came from?

Thanks.

[Gary Roth]

Keith,

I forward your questions to the proper resources here at the MTA and they updated two files:

•   ts_Field Description.txt  (for section FIELD DESCRIPTION)

•   Remote-Booth-Station.xls ( for section REMOTE/CONTROL AREA/STATION NAME KEY)

These files will be updated shortly (if they are not updated already).

I hope these addressed your issues.

Please feel free to contact me if there are any follow up questions,

Thank You,

-Gary

[Gary Roth]

I've just been informed that the ts_Field Description.txt file was updated again.  It should be updated shortly.  The new file will include the text below.

 

-Gary

 

Descn Possible Values (Events):

REGULAR - Regular scheduled audit event

NO-VAL LGN - Not Valid logon

LGF-MAN - Logoff Manual

LGF-DR CLS - Logoff Door Closed

LGF-SHUTDN - Logoff Shutdown

TS BRD CHG - Turnstile Board Change

TS VLT OPN - Turnstile Vault Open

RECOVR AUD - Recovery audit - if REGULAR was not delivered due to communications problems

[Keith Wiley]

Thanks.